Australia to get Irish abuse evidence

By Annette Blackwell
Yahoo! News
September 2, 2014

https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/24872949/australia-to-get-irish-abuse-evidence/

Evidence from people who suffered grave sexual and physical abuse when they were sent as children to Australia will be handed over to the royal commission into child sex abuse by a Northern Ireland inquiry.

Over the next three weeks the Historical Abuse Inquiry (HIA) being held in Banbridge, County Down will hear from 50 men and women who were part of a child migrant program which saw 130 children sent to Australia between 1922 and 1995.

Some will give evidence by video link from Australia while others have made statements. Officials from the HIA have been in Australia twice over the past year meeting with witnesses.

Sir Anthony Hart who heads up the HIA inquiry into institutions run by the Catholic Church and the state said evidence from Australian witnesses "would not be swept under the carpet."

"At the conclusion of this module arrangements will be made to furnish these statements to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which is presently carrying on its work in Australia," he said in his opening statement on Monday.

"In their witness statements, many of those who will give evidence describe their experiences after they arrived in Australia in shocking terms."

Their statements set out in graphic detail descriptions of the severe hardships, and grave sexual and physical violence, to which they say they were subjected as children in the institutions to which they were sent in Australia, Sir Anthony said.

The HIA is limited by its terms of reference to investigating abuse in Northern Ireland institutions.

Passing on information to the Australian commission would ensure these matters were drawn to its attention.

Sir Anthony also urged applicants to his inquiry, and anyone who had a similar experience, to contact the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

When the royal commission recently inquired into abuse claims centred around a Christian Brothers home in Perth, it heard from a number of child migrants sent to Australia after WWII.